Office Policies

OFFICE POLICIES

Appointments

Patients in our clinic are seen by appointment only. Appointments are made for a particular hour and day by calling the office during regular office hours. You may schedule an appointment with the physician of your choice. There are certain times, however, when a particular physician may be unavailable for an office visit because of our hospital rounding schedule, a full clinic schedule, continuing medical education courses, vacation, etc. For this reason, it is a good idea to become acquainted with more than just one physician in our practice. We require that the parent or legal guardian accompany the child on the first visit.

Children who are acutely ill or who have emergencies will be seen on the same day that the appointment is requested. Routine check-up appointments and follow-up appointments should be scheduled well in advance to ensure convenience. If you are delayed or must cancel an appointment, please let us know this as soon as possible so that another child may have that time slot. If you are late for your appointment, you may be rescheduled to the next available time slot. We respect the value of your time, so we make every effort to stay on schedule. Sometimes, however, emergencies or the care of a particularly sick patient may slow us down. We will try to notify you if this happens, and we appreciate your understanding.

Your cooperation in three areas of appointment-making helps us to stay on schedule and minimize your waiting time. We appreciate your help.

  • If your child has a complex problem (ex: evaluation of ADHD, behavior problems, or other situations that might require counseling, etc.), or if this is your child’s first visit to our clinic, please indicate this to our receptionist when making your appointment so that she will know to schedule extra time. This will allow our providers to more thoroughly evaluate your child.
  • If you have more than one child that needs to be seen, please indicate this when making the appointment so that adequate time can be scheduled for EACH child.
  • Please make an appointment for all visits to our office. Patients who “walk-in” to our office without an appointment for more routine complaints delay us unnecessarily resulting in prolonged waiting times for our patients with appointments. Patients who “walk-in” may be worked in with whichever provider is available or it may be necessary to come back when an appointment is open. With your cooperation we can keep waiting times to a minimum.
  • If someone other than the primary care giver will be accompanying the child, please send a detailed note concerning the child’s illness and medications. The physician needs to know the symptoms, such as fever, nausea, vomiting, etc. and how long or how often these symptoms have been going on. The physician also needs to know the medications that have been given to the child with the amounts and when the last dose was given. Make sure that this person makes notes or can adequately relay the physician’s instructions back to you. This will save on telephone calls and it will ensure that you will be able to promptly begin your child’s treatment.
  • We also ask that you make sure that your payment is sent with the person accompanying the child. “Billing the parent” is a time consuming expense which will result in higher fees to you. Familiarize this person with your insurance coverage and any co-pays or co-insurance that you may have.

After hours

AFTER-HOURS CONSULTATION

An important part of our service to our patients availability because significant illness and injuries can occur at any time. An on-call nurse is available weekdays from the time our office closes until 9:00 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 8:00am until 9:00pm. After 9:00pm all emergencies should go to the nearest emergency room.

We do appreciate receiving only calls pertaining to emergency and urgent medical problems after our regular office hours. Please refer to the section on telephone consultation which follows for information on how to contact us by telephone after hours.

TELEPHONE CONSULTATION

During our normal business hours, we have a nurse available to return your calls by the end of each day. We realize, however, that children get sick when the office is closed, so we have someone assigned nights and week-ends to answer your urgent questions.

  • Please call the office during regular office hours to schedule appointments and ask routine questions (e.g. feeding questions, diaper rash creams).
  • No text messages or text photos will be received at any time.
  • We do not routinely call in antibiotics over the phone without seeing the patient.
  • If the on call nurse feels you need to be seen, you will need to call the office first thing the next morning to make an appointment time. There is someone available to make an appointment beginning at 7:30 a.m. each day.
When do I call?

It is most important to answer this question for yourself. What might seem minor to a pediatrician can feel very much like an emergency to a parent. We certainly understand this. If you are very concerned about your child, or will not be able to rest comfortably without getting some additional advice, we expect you to call. Here are some guidelines that might help you decide if you need to call after-hours or if you can wait until morning.
Please call us after-hours if:

  • You feel uncomfortable with your child’s condition and do not feel it can wait until the next day
  • Your infant (< 3months of age) has a fever greater than 100.4 (rectally). This could indicate a life-threatening emergency.
  • Severe breathing difficulties (working hard to breathe, severe chest pain, persistent wheezing, pale skin)
  • Sharp abdominal pain lasting more than 2 hrs
  • Bleeding that you cannot stop
  • Vomiting that seems persistent or if there are signs of dehydration (decreased urine output, listlessness, intolerance to sips of clear fluid after a short period of tummy rest, approximately 2-4 hours)
  • You think your child needs to be seen in an Emergency Room or Urgent Care, but aren’t sure what the best choice would be. We would be very happy to help you make that decision.

Vaccines

Routine childhood immunization is a critical component of preventive pediatric care and one of the most effective ways to protect children from serious, life-threatening, and preventable diseases while supporting the health of our community.

Legacy Pediatrics recommends the childhood immunization schedules established by the Centers for Disease Control CDC) and endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). These schedules are based on extensive scientific research, ongoing safety monitoring, and expert consensus and represent the standard of care in pediatric medicine.

Social Media

In order to keep your medical information secure and in the best interest of your child/children, our office does not accept texts, photos or any social media contact for any reason. Please understand that we can best serve you when you call our office for advice or an appointment.